


A Mirage of a World Before a World

by gilligankane



Category: Legend of the Seeker
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-27
Updated: 2011-06-27
Packaged: 2017-11-17 07:35:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/549147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gilligankane/pseuds/gilligankane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kahlan remembers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Mirage of a World Before a World

**Author's Note:**

> Written after 2.21 "Unbroken" that dealt with an alternate universe.

Kahlan remembers.  
  
It’s not lucid memory. Sometimes, she turns her head too fast and feels the air rushing in her ears and she remembers – Cara in a flash of pink, her collarbone exposed; Cara with wide, pleading eyes; Cara struggling against rope bonds and begging to be spared; Cara, dead.  
  
She asks Zedd one night, camped out under the stars while Cara and Richard are hunting. It’s been weighing on her for too long (an entire half year, she finds out, when Zedd finally answers her questions) and it’s beginning to become a problem. Instead of paying mind to Richard, she’s turning towards Cara, listening to her speak, studying the curves of her leather, idly imagining Cara’s hair longer.  
  
She imagines it long enough to wrap around her finger three or four times and one morning, between being awake and asleep, she can feel the silky strands slip through her fingers, sliding away from her even as she lunges forward to hold on. Kahlan comes to reality and thanks the spirits that Cara is asleep and doesn’t notice Kahlan reaching for her.  
  
Zedd tells her of a world she doesn’t remember – her and Richard, married. But she hardly pays attention until he mentions Cara. Her head snaps up, her eyes glinting with interest.  
  
“Tell me,” she demands. “Was she leading the Mord-Sith guards?”  
  
Kahlan knows, even before Zedd tells her, that Cara wasn’t the head Mord-Sith. Mord-Sith don’t wear peach-and-pink colored gown. Their hair isn’t tucked back delicately in long, loose strands. They don’t have children – not the kind they cherish, anyway. Mord-Sith especially don’t beg for mercy, for their lives to be spared. And with what Kahlan remembers, Cara did and was all those things.  
  
The Mord-Sith would have killed that Cara without hesitation.  
  
As Zedd tells her, they did.  
  
“She doesn’t know, does she,” Kahlan asks quietly, eyes scanning the tree line for any glimpse of Cara. “She doesn’t know the happiness she felt or the pain or her…”  
  
“Her death,” Zedd finishes. “No. She remembers none of it. In fact, I’m surprised you remember anything.”  
  
Kahlan offers him a small smile. “I don’t really remember it. Sometimes, it just comes to me, little details.”  
  
Zedd nods. “Of course.”  
  
“Are you going to tell her?” Kahlan asks as a tree shakes in the distance, Richard stepping out from behind it. Cara is half a foot behind, a buck thrown over her shoulders.  
  
“Of an alternate reality where she knew the love of her children and the love of an honest man?” Zedd gives a hollow laugh, shaking Kahlan’s gaze away from the approaching hunting party. “Not even Cara deserves to be broken that way.”  
  
Kahlan must be staring, because when Cara and Richard step closer to the fire, Cara snaps at her. “What?”  
  
“Nothing,” Kahlan says quietly.  
  
She still casts glances at Cara across the fire all night, trying to force herself to remember the easy smile Zedd described.   
  
No matter how she tries, it never fits on Cara’s face.  
  
\---  
  
Kahlan remembers.  
  
It’s starting to overtake everything she sees. In place of red, Kahlan sees peach. The jagged ends of Cara’s crudely cut hair become longer, shinier, healthier. In the light at dusk, she swears that she sees two fair-haired children, each tugging on one of Cara’s arms.  
  
Sometimes, in the night, her palm burns with the heat of Cara’s skin against it.  
  
It’s ridiculous. Those two things hanging off Cara’s arms are rabbits – tonight’s dinner. And her hair is hanging down against the bone of her chin, contrasting against the shine of her leathers. Richard smiles at her but Kahlan doesn’t notice. She’s too busy looking at Cara, her eyes tracing the line of Cara’s jaw.  
  
“Richard is concerned,” Cara says quietly, later when they’re sitting close to the fire, Richard and Zedd sleeping near them. “He believes something is wrong with you.”  
  
“I’m fine,” Kahlan says quietly, staring into the depths of the fire. In its embers, buried under the flames, she can make out the shape of Leo Dane’s smirk, taunting her. It’s curving up at her the way his hands moved up the curve of Cara’s jaw as they appeared at dream-Cara’s home, Zedd freezing them, lips fused together.  
  
Zedd had told her that Fate worked in mysterious ways; that Fate had brought Cara and Leo together in that world as it hadn’t brought them together in this one.  
  
Kahlan was tempted to thank Fate for breaking them apart again.  
  
Which was something she couldn’t understand. Jealousy wasn’t a foreign emotion, but Kahlan has Richard – adoring, overeager but enthusiastic and passionate Richard. And Cara deserves someone. Cara works hard and everything has been taken from her – her childhood, her father, her son, Daliah, Leo… Cara deserves to be happy and loved.  
  
“You have been acting strange lately,” Cara muses, her voice pulling Kahlan out of her thoughts. “You stare at me.”  
  
Kahlan thinks of making up an excuse, but when she opens her mouth, Cara beats her to it. “And you have been staring at me while you talk to the Wizard. I wonder if I should sleep with one eye open.”  
  
“Do you dream of Leo?” The words slip out of Kahlan’s mouth before she can stop them. “I mean…”  
  
Cara’s shoulders tense, like she’s preparing for a fight. “I don’t dream,” she says brusquely. “Not that it’s any of your business.” She stands abruptly and lays down on her bedroll, Agiels in her hand, back turned to Kahlan and the fire. “Wake me when it’s my turn to keep watch.”  
  
A Nygaax could attack them, but Kahlan is too busy watching Cara and wouldn’t notice.  
  
\---  
  
Kahlan remembers.  
  
The heat of Cara’s skin under her hand lingers familiarly. The bone of her jaw presses into the crease of Kahlan’s palm comfortingly, her chin against the heel of Kahlan’s hand. This time, though, Cara’s eyes are bright, round and curious. They dart between Kahlan’s eyes and lips. Her mouth isn’t slack, but turned up at the corners. Kahlan can’t read that smirk, can’t tell if she’s more amused or curious.  
  
What Kahlan  _can_  read is the way Cara’s face leans in towards her, instead of away from her. She can understand that Cara isn’t turning and running in the other direction.  
  
For a moment, right before she closes the distance between them, she thanks Fate and Zedd and Leo Dane – she knows, without them, there wouldn’t be this moment of Cara’s lips parting slightly, a slight stream of air ghosting across the side of Kahlan’s as Cara exhales.  
  
And then she stops thanking people and starts paying attention. Cara’s mouth is wet and hot and eager, pressing against her lips. There is no hesitation, like the first time Richard kissed her. Just Cara’s tongue skimming across the seam of her lips and slipping past them, skating over her teeth until it brushes against her tongue and Kahlan feels her knees go weak.  
  
She can understand why Leo Dane would want this, in any life.  
  
Kahlan steps forward, forcing Cara back. She feels like she can’t get enough, no matter how hard she presses against Cara’s leathers. Her hands slide from Cara’s jaw into her hair, cupping the back of her head delicately, tilting until her nose is brushing against Kahlan’s cheek and it’s impossible to be any closer.  
  
“Kahlan,” Cara mutters, breaking the kiss and leaning back just enough so that her mouth slides against Kahlan’s as she speaks. “What are you doing?”  
  
The words fall out of her easily. She tells Cara about her happiness; about the swell of her breasts in her peach dress; about the little boy and girl left stranded without a mother or a father; about Leo; about the way Kahlan couldn’t stop her heart from racing; and about the fear in her eyes as she pleaded to be let go.   
  
When Kahlan is done, Cara shakes her head and whispers, “Mord-Sith do not beg for their lives.”  
  
Kahlan sags with relief, leaning heavily into Cara. “No,” she agrees, “they do not.”  
  
The Cara she dreams blends with the Cara she sees with her eyes open, meshing together as Cara leans in and kisses her again. Kahlan loosens her grip, the fear of Cara running dissipating with each stroke of Cara’s tongue against her own. Her imagination becomes reality as Cara’s hands – not bound, not touching Leo Dane – slide around her waist to her back, tugging her closer.  
  
Kahlan stops remembering and lives.


End file.
